


This Christmas (I'll Burn It to the Ground)

by canufeelthemagictonight



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Destruction, Drabble, Fire, Firefighters, Gen, One Shot, Phone Calls & Telephones, Spooky, Supernatural Elements, the s1 house burns down, this is probably one of the most original things I've ever written on this site, which isn't saying much but whatever, you decide what happened ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-24 20:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19731559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canufeelthemagictonight/pseuds/canufeelthemagictonight
Summary: No one knew who started the fire...On the first Christmas after Joey, Eva, and Oli escaped the night, the s1 house meets a fiery end.An Escape the Night one-shot.





	This Christmas (I'll Burn It to the Ground)

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty different from what I usually write, but I hope you like it anyway!

On Christmas morning of 1920, the local fire department received a call from one Mabel Ridley, a sixty-three-year-old woman who lived alone in a little cottage not far from the house known only as the Estate. As soon as Firefighter Peter King answered the phone (in a slightly grumpy voice, as he had been called away from a gift exchange to attend to this problem), he found himself getting a high-pitched earful from an absolutely hysterical Ms. Ridley. "Fire!" she shrieked into the phone. "Help! The Estate! _Fire!"_

"Ma'am, where’s the fire?" asked Firefighter King, his grumpiness replaced by concern.

"The Estate," repeated Ms. Ridley, and she rattled off its address into his ear. "I woke up, and it was an _inferno_ down there! On _Christmas,_ too! Please hurry! I don't want the flames to spread!"

Firefighter King assured her that help was on the way, then hung up the phone and set off the fire alarm to alert his fellow firefighters.

"Aw, really?" complained Firefighter Vincent Miller, who had only joined the department about two months before this. "A fire? _Now?_ But it's _Christmas,_ for God's sake!"

"Doesn't matter," sighed Captain Jonathan Montgomery. "Duty calls. We have a job to do."

They all went straight to the Estate, where they spent a full five hours attempting to put out the fire, using about a million buckets of water in the process. A small crowd gathered to watch them work. Everyone was, of course, confident that the fire department would be able to handle the situation before the whole tri-state area could burn.

As it turned out, everyone was half right. The fire was finally put out, and no other buildings, trees, or fields were harmed in its wake. But the once-beautiful Estate was left a smoldering, unusable husk of what it had once been. It was a total loss.

"At least no one was hurt," was the word around town the next day. "After all, when was the last time anyone _lived_ in that place?"

No one knew who started the fire. Some were heard to say that it was the fault of a kicked-over lantern, not unlike the one that caused the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Others claimed that lightning struck the house and set it ablaze. Still others whispered that a jealous beggar had committed arson in the dead of night on Christmas Eve. There were even those who dismissed it as the Lord's work.

But one thing remains troubling: at least ten different people who were there on that fateful Christmas Day, firefighters and bystanders alike, insisted that they heard the sound of triumphant laughter coming from inside the burning Estate. 

"A ghost!"" some said.

"A demon!" declared others.

"We're all going to burn!" cried the paranoid.

"Don’t be silly," Firefighter King would always tell them. "I was in the thick of it, and I can tell you that there was _definitely_ nothing supernatural going on."

He said that, but even _he_ secretly thought that he might've heard something…

**Author's Note:**

> Draw your own conclusions.


End file.
